Wednesday, 16 April 2014

17 April 2014

There have been a
number of harrowing cases presented this week about the impact of psychoactive
substances on vulnerable young people.

At one level, the
tales are deeply disturbing. It is awful to see anyone affected in the way some
of these young people appear to have been. However, at another level, they are
a little hard to believe at face value. The only psychoactive substances
currently able to be sold legally are those that were on sale at least three
months before the Act was passed, and which had hitherto not been known to be
the cause of any problems. It is a little hard to see how they can suddenly
have become so damaging, just in recent months. A far more likely explanation
is that the people in question have been using a combination of legal and
illegal drugs, or outlawed drugs obtained on the black market.

But be all that
as it may, the fact remains that despite the R18 restriction on sales and
possession there are still young people being adversely affected. It makes me
all the more angry at the tardy and downright irresponsible response of our
Mayors and Councils who, nine months after the passage of the Act, have done so
little to implement the responsibilities they begged Parliament to give them.
Nor has the psychoactive substances industry shown any interest in anything
other than their bottom line.

At the same time,
this emerging situation has led me to look again at what is available on the
market at present, and the impact it is having. For that reason, I asked the
Ministry of Health some weeks ago to check with doctors and mental health
facilities around the country the impact the substances presently available
were having. It is also why the manufacturers of those products are presently
being audited on their compliance with the manufacturing code of practice that
was released earlier in the year. I am reviewing the situation on literally a
daily basis, including whether additional legislative measures are required.

Let there be no
doubt that as far as I am concerned there is nothing positive about
psychoactive substances. The issue is simply how to deal with what Time
magazine called this week “the
most complicated drug problem in the world right now … spreading to eager buyers everywhere at an
unprecedented speed.” Because banning these products does not work (Time points
out that “because the newest compounds don’t yet appear on state and federal
lists of illegal drugs, the sellers can market them as legal. As soon as
authorities add a compound to the prohibited list, the chemists tweak the
formula—ever so slightly—to make a new substance that purports to be legal”)
our responsibility must be to ensure the environment in which they are used in
New Zealand reduces the prospect of harm to the greatest extent possible. That
should not be interpreted as any form of approval for these pernicious
products, as some ignorantly suggest. It is, rather, about implementing control
policies that are realistic, responsible and ultimately effective. That is all
that drives me day in and day out on this issue.

Ban legal highs & put the importers, manufacturers & retailers in jail, where they belong. The people of New Zealand are tired of corrupt & incompetent polititians like Peter Dunne & his legal high lawyer son. We're tired of paying the price for your lack of comprehension.